


Electromagnetic

by rainer76



Category: Fringe
Genre: M/M, Post Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-16
Updated: 2011-08-16
Packaged: 2017-10-22 16:30:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/240099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/pseuds/rainer76
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Charlie's death Olivia's assigned a new agent from Hartford, unfortunately for Lincoln, his eyesight just went askew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Electromagnetic

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to ziparumpazoo, who had this story dropped on her head unexpectedly, and who went above and beyond beta-duties.

_Each man starts with his very first breath,  
To devise shrewd means for outwitting death. _  
\- James Cagney.__

 

Technically, Charlie Francis dies on the ninth of May. He’s not actively mourned until two months later, and Agent Lee doesn’t receive his walking papers until the month following. Lincoln does a background check because it’s healthy to know _something _about the person he’s been tasked to work with, then spends the next week wishing he hadn’t. “I didn’t join the FBI to become the next victim to the Black Widow, because seriously, two partners in two years seems a little excessive.”__

“Excuse me?”

The voice is an earthquake, a low warning that snaps Lee upright. He pushes the glasses onto the bridge of his nose and turns with glacial slowness, and yes, the earthquake _would _be Colonel Broyles, standing within earshot and glowering at Lincoln with homicidal intent. Myles, Lee notes, ducks down to finish his paperwork, belly so low to the desk he’s almost prone. “Sir,” Lee stumbles, “I didn’t mean… It’s just that I enjoy living,” he finishes weakly.__

“Two partners in two years,” Broyles repeats, teeth flashing white. “Maybe you’ll be the one to break the unfortunate streak then. Correct, Agent Lee?”

“My mother always said I was a charm, sir,” Lee answers gamely and thinks _I’m so going to die _.__

The Black Widow comes with golden hair and hazel eyes - the witching gaze of autumn hues - browns, golds, with flecks of dying green. She comes with a mad scientist, her own personal cow, and a whippet of a girl with crazy curls. Olivia Dunham has excess baggage, zero interest in befriending the new agent assigned to her team, and with a single-minded intensity that threatens to overwhelm Lee on his best days. He’s a polite boy; he comes from a polite family, and while Dunham observes the niceties of social interaction, god-forbid if you step in the way of her mission statement. Walter Bishop, as far as Lincoln can tell, is three cans short of a six-pack. “He drugged me,” Lee moans into the phone. “Walter never drugs Astrid.”

“Maybe he’s sexist?” Myles suggests, voice tinny, crackling with distance.

If he thinks about it, Lee can imagine the colours on Myles’s fingertips, pen ink versus nicotine in splotches of blue and yellow. Myles was a slob, but he was Lincoln’s partner in Hartford for three years. “No,” Lee says soberly. “I think Walter likes Astrid better.” Myles is overly jaded against crime - where it’s a detriment rather than an aid to his career - but to Lincoln’s knowledge Myles’ never performed experiments on Lee’s personage without consent. “God, why did I get picked for this detail?”

“Because you’re a weirdo,” Myles says without rancour.

Lincoln holds the phone away from his ear as if it’s personally affronted him. “I am not.”

“Dude, totally you are.”

“Was that Yoda or Bill ‘N Ted?” Because when it came to film impressions, Myles wasn’t hindered by genre or good taste, or for that matter, accuracy.

“Gotta go kid, but listen, don’t let the mad scientist strap you down with electrodes!”

There’s the buzz of a disconnected call, an ache in Lincoln’s back-teeth that speaks of homesickness, and a residual headache from unsolicited narcotics. Walter Bishop drugs him a further three times before Olivia steps in.

***

It’s not a mad scientist who zaps Lincoln with electricity but a felon named Joseph Meegar. Olivia and Charlie were on a case a year ago where Meegar was suspected of driving an elevator into the ground floor of an office building - but Meegar gave them the slip and was never seen again - that is, until he shoots Lincoln with a hundred and twenty volts, (60Hz, Walter later informs him) of electricity, a pure arc of white lightning. Lincoln goes into ventricular fibrillation instantly, body flung through the air like a ragdoll. He lands flat on his back, shirt charred, the smoking ruins stuck to the edges of his blistered skin. It’s Walter who diagnoses the arrhythmia, who keeps Lincoln alive and breathing until the paramedics arrives. He awakes at Boston General with no memory of the previous two days; with Olivia standing ashen by his bedside. He awakes to find Walter giving head to a popsicle; with a stranger sprawled boneless in a plastic chair near the corner of the room. “Who’s that?” Lincoln says blurrily, before he drifts away again.

“What?” Three voices say in stereo.

The second time he wakes up there’s only a nurse for company, systematically checking the burns on his torso. She wipes the seepage away as Lincoln curses, his muscles bunching with each gasp and pull. “Where’s the good stuff?” he says hoarsely.

“You’re already on it,” the nurse returns.

“Balderdash,” Lee spits, as offensive as he can bring himself to be. The woman blinks, nonplussed, and turns away. To the left of Lee there’s a low chuckle.

“Who says balderdash these days?”

“ _Biggles _fans,” Lincoln answers shortly, before he considers the source of the question. Lee turns toward the chair he knows is propped in the corner and sees the same stranger freeze, as if he’s the one jolted with a hundred and twenty volts of electricity straight to the heart.__

“ _Biggles _, really? Oh, you are so very gay.”__

“I was going to be a pilot,” Lincoln annunciates carefully. “A fighter-pilot.” Except his vision turned out to be less than twenty-twenty and really, who lurks in hospital wards except the mentally deranged? “And you?”

“I was going to be a brontosaurus,” the stranger deadpans, and maybe, Lincoln thinks he should have added ‘are’ to the end of his question.

“I think I have brain damage.”

“No. But you did get hit with enough electrical charge to knock your system completely off kilter, hence, seeing me.” He has long fingers laced across his stomach; legs stretched out before him in like an invitation to climb. “Although to be honest, you weren’t the one I was counting on.”

Long thighs – and a bit of a dick to boot. “Gee, thanks,” Lee says, and ignores the smirk on the other man’s face. He closes his eyes against the crawling sensation, an itch under his skin like bugs scuttling across raw nerves, and ponders. “What are the after-effects of electrocution?”

“Good question. I treated you when you first arrived, Agent Lee, my name is Dr. Gregis.” A woman enters the room with a tired smile; she’s kind enough to ignore Lincoln’s compulsive start. His eyes flying open at the intrusion. Dr. Gregis stands off centre in the room, rubbing the back of her neck fitfully. Lee’s certain if he turns his head the chair will be empty. “Electric shock can damage the neuropathy of the brain, or constrict the oculomotor nerve,” Dr. Gregis says calmly.

Which tells Lincoln exactly squat.

“What she means is the neural activation used during spatial awareness can be damaged, or more accurately, the oculomotor nerve, which effects depth perception.” The chairs definitely not empty. He turns an irritated glance in the direction of his unintended ward-mate, who shrugs one lazy shoulder as if to say Doctors. Said doctor, however, doesn’t react to his statement at all.

“So it’s brain damage,” Lee says flatly.

“A mild variety, and it’s highly likely it’ll correct itself in time.” Gregis tilts her head. “For the time being though, both your licenses are suspended. I understand you’re in law enforcement?”

“FBI,” Lincoln says tonelessly.

“You’ll have to requalify for your driver’s licence as well as the use of your service weapon. Until then, the safest spot is behind a desk.”

“The lab isn’t safe.” Lee fiddles with the bed-sheet unhappily. He takes a breath, eyes averted from the chair. “Doctor, there’s only two of us in the room, correct?” Gregis looks up sharply; she takes a step forward as Lee continues hurriedly. “I thought I saw a nurse before.”

“Oh, Jenna, she ducked out earlier to continue her rounds.” Gregis studies him. “You didn’t see her go?”

“Must have fallen asleep.”

She nods. “The tiredness will continue for a day or two. To answer your question Agent Lee, there’s no one in the room but you and I, no nurses lurking in the bathroom.”

Lee feels his smile harden into plastic. “Fantastic news.”

From across the room, the stranger narrows his eyes. “Don’t even _think _about playing the ‘you don’t exist’ card.” Lincoln watches Gregis scribble on his chart, watches as she exits the room, then turns his attention to the stranger, who’s no longer sprawled in the chair but sitting upright, shoulders hunched in, muscles tense, staring at Lee with intent.__

“You don’t exist,” Lee says decisively. “It’s misfiring neurons and too much electrical current. I am not going to end up in a padded cell beside Doctor Bishop at St. Claire’s because honestly, I’m good-looking, and weird things happen to good-looking guys in those places. Ergo, along with the random twitches and messed up vision, you too shall pass.”

The stranger smiles, his expression sardonic. “You sure you want to take that stance?”

Lincoln’s certain, until he spends the next eight hours fisting a pillowcase over his ears as the stranger bellows Row, Row, Row your Boat _tunelessly _, until Lincoln decides he’s not a hallucination but the spawn of the devil. “Oh god, enough already!”__

“Peter Bishop,” the other man introduces, and gives Lee the same unpleasant smile when Lincoln does a double take at the surname.

_________________

 

Lincoln catches a cab to Harvard University on Friday evening, as rain sleets the dark streets, and the sky hangs ominous. Lincoln’s skin twitches on every roll of thunder like the flanks of a wild horse. He finds Walter milking Gene quietly in the back stalls. Peter stands beside him, fingers curled into loose fists, so close there’s barely space to slot a coin between them.

The arrangement between St. Claire’s and the FBI is delicate - Astrid picks Walter up from the hospital at eight every morning, whereas Olivia or Lincoln traditionally return him by ten the same night. Olivia told Lincoln things were easier now; when Walter was first placed in FBI custody it was unpredictable; tantrums, tears, other things Walter did Olivia won’t disclose. Lincoln’s been here two months; he knows Walter pushes the envelope, tries to stay back longer and longer; he knows too, they can’t afford to antagonise St. Claire’s. They lost access to Walter Bishop once for two months while legal battlefields were redrawn - they can ill afford to do so again.

Dr. Bishop brightens when he sees him. “Oh, Agent Pee, I wasn’t expecting you!”

“Lee,” Lincoln automatically corrects.

“That reminds me.” He heads off toward the bathroom, voice raising an octave as he continues to speak. “Agent Dunham and Astro arrested your attacker. He’s a flighty one…literally. Did I tell you we theorised he could levitate?”

Lincoln takes a seat and paws through the material Olivia left behind. Peter leans over him, one hand on the back of his chair, the other braced on the desk. He feels solid; there’s weight to Peter’s form. Distracted, Lee wonders if he leant backward, would there be stomach muscle to greet him or thin air? Peter doesn’t stay within Lincoln’s radius twenty-four/seven; he vanishes and reappears like a Cheshire cat, eyes burning bright. There’s a part of Lee buried deep that’s afraid of his own answer - certain of a different, more clinical explanation - not flattering to Lee’s state of mind.

“I exist,” Peter says softly as if he’s read Lincoln’s thoughts, then a little more persistently. “I _exist _.”__

“I think therefore I am?” Lee says sarcastically, not turning away from the arrest report. Peter presses close, his words echo in Lincoln’s head like a mantra, a charm, the toss of a lucky coin. Lincoln’s skin buzzes like a livewire.

Peter tells his story in fits and starts, with large chunks missing, he tells it like a fairytale or a comic-book - angry one moment, bewildered the next. Like most grand stories it involves a girl, capable of the fantastical, except she could only access her ability with the aid of cortexiphan, or by the presence of a boy who stood beside her through all the major upheavals of discovery - from turning the lights off in a box, to identifying objects from the other side - to greater feats, impacting another world while never leaving her own, to telekinesis.

Peter says this flatly, his admission a bare whisper (I liked it; I liked the connection between us, I liked she needed me – here’s to the male ego).

Except Olivia came to believe she _couldn’t do it on her own _, until many years in the future, a man named Walternate came to the same conclusion and deliberately separated the boy from the girl.__

(So he could stand two feet away from my wife and shoot her in the head, Peter says viciously).

And that wasn’t acceptable, it wasn’t how the story was supposed to end, so rewind, replay, let’s start again. This time the boy’s never there. This time the girl turns the light-box off by herself knowing there’s no one at her back. She identifies objects from the other side and realises the ability comes from within herself, unrelated to anyone else. It’s her - if Olivia chooses to believe in it - it’s _always _been her.__

“She doesn’t remember you,” Lee realises and aches, bone-deep, for the hollowness in Peter’s eyes.

“I think I like this world better.”

For the potential. Because in fifteen years time if someone points a gun at her head, Olivia won’t hesitate. Are the people you meet better off if you never existed? Lincoln thinks the answer shouldn’t be known, the repercussions untold. Joseph Meegar was arrested. Walter will be returned to St. Claire’s until the next case-file emerges. It could be a day, or a month, but he sees the way the older man trembles, the way the tension in his body amps upward as Walter readies himself for the eventual return. He wants to ask Peter if, subconsciously, he did this to himself, some kernel of guilt that played out into perception, a random idea the Machine picked up on. Instead he says, “So actually, it’s three for three.”

Peter straightens; his face turns hostile. “If you ever let it slip to Olivia she has a nick-name among the outer branches, I’ll personally smother you with the over-priced IKEA rug in your apartment, clear?”

“Crystal,” Lincoln says, and decides he likes the anger in Peter’s eyes over the stony bleakness.

He signs Walter out on the weekend, fakes a bogus FBI case and takes the older man to Coney Island Aquarium, where Walter presses his fingers against cold glass and terrifies the children with stories of colossal squid found in New Zealand waters. “Do you know how to fix this?” Lincoln whispers as an aside, because Peter hasn’t done much but hang about and annoy Lincoln since he first appeared.

“No. Not until you guys uncover the Machine.”

Lee gives him the stink-eye, buys Walter ice cream, and doesn’t return to St. Claire’s until ten-thirty pm.

In November Olivia meets Frank Stanton. Peter flickers like a hologram from a retro Star Wars film and vanishes from sight.

Lincoln takes his driver’s evaluation test and passes; at the shooting range he doesn’t hit a single target. He bites his nails to the quick as one day turns into three; he rearranges his IKEA rug, tidies the files on his desk, watches a game of football with a beer in his lap, but the house remains empty, sullen with unbroken silence. On the Thursday he takes a short drive to the nearest farm where the cows stare at him stupidly. Lincoln pulls a face, staring upward toward the blemished sky, feeling ridiculous, and touches the tip of his finger to the electric fence. “Crap,” he says, shaking the digit as the cows’ moo at him questioningly.

“I hope you weren’t the type that peed on electric fences when you were a kid,” Peter says dryly.

Lee swings around, jittery with current. “Where the hell have you been?”

Peter’s pale, eyes blown wide. “I don’t know…I’m not…I _do _exist,” he says brokenly. Lincoln never been one to over-step his rule about touching his hallucination; not keen to plough the depths of his own madness; but he steps forward because he recognises the look in Peter’s eyes. Lincoln’s seen it in cancer survivors, people who have clawed their way into living, Peter has the demeanour of someone who’s intimate with death - who came face to face with it at an age _way _too young - he has the look of someone who will stay alive no matter the cost, wild, ready to lash out like an unmoored line. “I exist,” Peter insists, teeth bared, and it occurs to Lincoln he’s braced against _Lee _; against the rebuttal he knows is coming.______

“Okay,” Lincoln says simply, because he doesn’t know how to calm the other man down. “Okay, you definitely exist. It’s just that you exist on a different spatial plane to us. You should stay here from now on, yeah, with me?”

Peter’s face is tight, feral. He takes a breath as Lincoln watches him.

In December they find the first piece of the Machine; Lee tells Olivia he has a contact in the mercury business and the information can be trusted. Olivia raises an eyebrow but they go in, arrest their shape-shifter, a milliner working in New York, and find the necessary evidence. In December, Lee has a contact in the packing trade, and he’s pretty sure the plastic can be connected to a series of obscure killings. Olivia stares at him, hard. “You have more contacts than I originally thought,” she says, dubiously.

“And you have a remarkably accurate gut.”

They stare at one another until Olivia’s mouth twitches. “Fair point.”

They come to an agreement: Lincoln doesn’t question Olivia’s instinct on the job, and she doesn’t question Lincoln’s varied connections to odd and illegal activities. In January, Olivia approaches him. “I don’t suppose you have any weird connections in the flight industry?”

Peter, the bastard, has (or had), his cargo licence, and he coaches Lincoln through the routes of illegal smuggling as they watch a game of baseball. “You take my father out this weekend,” Peter bargains, “and when this business is sorted, I’ll teach you to fly.”

“Deal,” Lincoln pounces and hopes he doesn’t sound too giddy.

“Agent Key!” Walter says, eyes lowered like a crocodile, and throws a pudding at Lincoln’s head when he picks him up from the institution.

Lincoln ducks with alacrity. Peter looks at him from the corner of his eye, his mouth quirked with amusement.

By March, the Machine is completely assembled and sits in a hanger-bay in New York, Lincoln’s target shooting is on the mark, his spatial awareness no longer effected by the electrocution, and Olivia accidently falls to the Other side. Peter vanishes. It doesn’t matter how many times Lincoln zaps himself, nothing good ever comes from it.

By April, Olivia’s back; tight-lipped about her experiences, about what goaded her to return. Frank moves in over one long weekend in spring, her house beginning to rearrange itself to accommodate him. When August rolls around New York’s drenched with summer heat, the asphalt on the roads soft as taffy. Olivia’s been with Frank Stanton for ten months; her smile secret, eyes soft, like she’s guarding something precious, untouched by horror. Lincoln thinks about the fragment of a memory, the impression of a ghost, and feels something shift in him. Everyone in the upper echelons knows about the Others by then. If there’s no case-file for the Fringe team to investigate, Lincoln picks Walter up every weekend under false pretences. He lets the man call him Agent Pee, Key, Tea, and Agent See without complaint. You existed, Lincoln thinks, holding Walter’s hand as he shies away from a crowd, and if Peter can give himself to the greater sum, Lincoln can protect the fragments he left behind.

By September, the Bridge flickers into existence as if automated. It’s metaphorical archway is nothing but the room the Machine resides in, opposing doors leading to opposing worlds, and it runs like clock-work - between the hours fourteen hundred to sixteen hundred, denizens of either side can cross, communicate, compare notes - a two hour window before the ‘bridge’ vanishes. If an agent stands on foreign soil after four pm, they remain stuck until the following day. “I can’t control the Machine,” Olivia confesses at Liberty Island, staring at its mass warily.

“You can do anything,” Lincoln disagrees, because he’s seen it; he knows down to his bones Olivia can do anything.

She ducks her head, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear irritably. “Not this,” Olivia insists. “It’s like the Machine’s in stand-by mode.”

“A specific DNA code,” Walter says miserably.

 

______________

 

Ironically, Peter Bishop returns on May Day, almost two years after Charlie’s death. Olivia calls him into being without ever knowing, her face set, fierce as a goddess.

“We need someone who can operate this goddamn machine!” Broyles bellows, trying to out-volume four bickering scientists, two Olivia Dunham’s, and Lincoln’s double (and yeah, he is a good-looking guy). Lee stares helplessly until the other Lincoln licks his lips, juts his hips forward suggestively; disconcerted, more than alarmed, Lincoln walks out of the boardroom to check the latest results. He’s pretty sure he hears AltLiv snigger as he does so. He makes a coffee in the small kitchenette, searching for a clean cup to no avail, and wonders if he ought to lose the tie, the suits, the glasses, if he should buy a black jacket or practice his swagger.

Unbeknownst to everyone, Peter simply appears, drawn and quartered between the machine’s opposing points like a battered sacrifice. He totters as a newborn before he pulls his limbs inward, staggers down the flight of stairs and face-plants on the concrete, three feet from Lincoln’s position.

The coffee cup, half-washed, drops with a clatter.

Lincoln hears movement behind him: the rush of bodies, the sound of weapons being drawn and pivots, arms outstretched to shield the man behind him. “He’s with me!” Lincoln yelps.

“You?” Broyles repeats, the business end of his weapon at attention.

Olivia stands beside Broyles, a quizzical line between her eyebrows, mouth parted. She looks once at the machine then toward Lincoln. “He’s my weird contact,” Lincoln says in a rush then winces at his choice of words, at the way Olivia zeroes in on him. AltLiv circles the edge of their group warily while Lincoln’s double reclines against a concrete pillar, his arms folded.

“In a secured building?” Broyles rumbles.

“He’s good with locks.”

“In a _top secret _building?” Broyles modifies and oh, oh, that was probably a dig at Lincoln’s ability to keep a secret.__

“He’s injured,” Olivia says, business-like. She shoots Lincoln a guarded look, indecipherable; it’s harder than Lincoln thought possible to move aside, to let her have access, because Peter’s here but no one remembers him, and no one but Lincoln saw how he arrived.

“Does your weird contact have a name?” AltLiv asks.

The man on the ground stirs. “Peter…”

“Caspian,” Lincoln interrupts. Peter’s not tracking yet, and it’s best they don’t open the can of worms until everyone’s feeling more civilised. Or at least has their weapons holstered.

“Casper,” Walter says musingly, his finger running over the coin in his pocket. “Just like the ghost.”

Lincoln places one hand on Peter’s chest, solid over his heartbeat, lets his fingers curl inward until the material bunches. “Feels real to me.”

“Fifteen fifty-five people,” Lincoln’s double drawls, and grabs AltLiv by the shoulder, leading her through the opposite door.

 

*****

 

Olivia and Brandon drag Peter into one of the smaller rooms while Lincoln haggles for privacy, for the luxury to find out why his informant is here; he meets Broyles’ intensity with every fibre of inner resolve, voice calm, never rising above its customary level.

“Caspian?” Peter asks, when Lincoln finally shuts the door and collapses into the nearest chair.

“You scared the crap out of me,” Lincoln hisses. He fists his hair until it stands in awkward tuffs and rummages through Olivia’s desk until he finds the whiskey. “It’s not like any of them _know who you are _. Broyles is trying to figure out if he should arrest you.” Fingers shaking, he uncaps the bottle and draws a healthy sip, feeling stubble rasp against the side of his cheek, eyes like sandpaper after being awake for thirty-two hours straight. Lincoln swallows, choking against the liquid burn. “Do you know where you went afterwards?” he asks, proffering the bottle.__

“No,” Peter says stiffly, he takes a sip without bothering to wipe the rim. “I want my father out of the institution.”

Lincoln leans into his seat, scrambling to keep up. “That could be difficult, seeing there’s no documentation saying you’re his son. All the rules you told me about in…the past… apply here: immediate family only, unless you have a sanctioned order from the federal district court of Massachusetts, and even then, Walter needs to be returned to St. Claire’s within fourteen hours.”

Peter’s eyes flash. He paces the room like something caged, on the verge of violence. “Get the Courts to do a parental DNA test; they can’t argue evidence, and Walter wasn’t faithful to his wife, _especially _in the seventies.”__

“You’re posing as an illegitimate child?”

“Direct relation to Walter.”

“And the mother?”

“Dead. I’ll find someone from his old experiments to fill the gap, don’t worry.”

“Well and good, except I could go to prison for this,” Lincoln reminds, because hello, there’s more to consider than Walter Bishop; it’s like Peter hit the concrete floor and got up running, struck with tunnel vision. Lincoln’s voice turns arch, “Conspiracy to commit fraud won’t look good on my future employment applications, either, thank you for considering.”

“The quacks at St. Claire’s won’t find out,” Peter says simply, “and they won’t release Walter to me if you tell the truth.”

Lincoln chews on his inner cheek, listening to the muted sounds of the Liberty Island Bridge, the rattle of recycled air, the constant backdrop of computers, beneath that lies the subterranean hum of the Machine; Lincoln recaps the whiskey bottle, places it inside Olivia’s drawer and reminds himself false identity is a skill set Peter’s proficient in.

“Are you certain you worked for the FBI?”

“Among others.” Peter watches him, eyes calculating; he comes to a rest between Lincoln’s widely spaced legs and drops into a squat, one hand on Lincoln’s thigh for balance. “Lincoln, please, I need your help with this.” The position looks good on him, Lee thinks dizzily, he’s tired, heat pools in his stomach from the alcohol. Peter seems likes an invitation, imminently touchable, physical contact where there had been none. It would be easy to tilt forward, to fix form to memory, to map solidness rather than the ethereal. Olivia calls out, her voice echoing in the caverns of the outer room and Bishop recoils. Lincoln feels his eyes widen, a zap of electricity that chases the exhaustion away. He rolls his chair backward. “Don’t play me.”

Lincoln sounds cutting to his own ears – explicit with warning. The hairs on his arms stand on end.

Olivia enters the room, her footsteps precise, searching for hidden landmines. “Hello?”

Both men freeze. Peter has his back turned, still balanced on his haunches; his expression turns bland between one breath and the next, _You little shit _, Lincoln thinks uncharitably. He resolves to drop his IKEA rug in a lake and beat Peter around the head with it the next time he tries to manipulate him.__

“Frank’s here. He’d like to take a look at your informant if you don’t mind.”

“Go ahead,” Lincoln says, feeling mean. “Stick him with as many needles as you want.”

Peter’s expression does something complex, a gauntlet of emotion that settles between chagrined and bemused; he rises to his feet smoothly. “Not necessary. I wasn’t…careful when I first arrived. Sorry. Low blood sugar.”

Olivia doesn’t look convinced, like Peter, her attention remains fixed on Lincoln, hands clasped behind her back, attentive at parade rest. Her collar’s flicked up against the chill. “You didn’t tell me how you wound up with an informant, Lee?”

Lincoln’s seen her interrogate enough suspects to know there are hooks in Olivia’s question, and if Peter’s going to mess with him, _even slightly _, there’s an unchartered part of Lincoln’s psyche that wants to mess right back. “Flotsam and jetsam. I was shocked into inheriting him.” Peter winces. Olivia looks as if her list of questions just exploded; Lincoln cuts her off at the pass before she can get a head start. “I’ll tell the full story another time.”__

There’s an awkward silence as the three of them stare at one another.

“Broyles is reviewing the security footage,” Olivia provides.

“Oh…” Lincoln wonders if now would be a good time to update his lexicon from Balderdash to Fuck because clearly, this is not going to work. “…boy, that’s good, very good.”

Not missing a beat, Olivia asks. “Is there anything you’d care to add?” Lincoln can see the white of her teeth, the muscles elongated in her frame, Olivia’s built to run, every particle of her body vibrating with the hunt.

“Two hours to get our stories straight would be nice,” Peter says, exasperated, “or you know, five minutes.”

Frank pokes his head into the room. He pushes the door wide open to reveal Walter at his back, voice professional as he enquires. “Are you Caspian?”

“That’s not Peter’s surname,” Walter insists, and is almost flattened against the doorjamb when Broyles stalks into the room.

“Why is there no footage on these cameras?”

It spirals downhill from there.

***

After forty-eight hours and zero sleep, Lincoln starts to feel punchy. Peter drives him to his apartment in silence, the road deserted, the landscape alien in the washed silver of the car’s headlights. Two executive decisions were made straight off the bat: one: no one was included in the ad-hoc meeting other than the principle players of blue team, and two: Peter’s initial plan to get Walter out of St. Claire’s is a go-ahead.

Peter tells an abbreviated version of the story - which drops the love affair between Olivia and himself - his eyes darting toward Frank Stanton as the man pulls blood and hair samples from Walter.

The discussion had been low, heated: Walter ran his own tests, voice unsteady, saying he could have the results back within a few hours and determine whether ‘Casper’ was lying. It took Walter two and a half hours to verify Peter’s parentage, and four hours to convince him they couldn’t use Walter’s test in a court of law. It’s Frank who suggests Bero Genetics, an independent source with no connection to the FBI or any previous dealings with Walter. The good news: their impartiality was without question. The bad: the results would take up to four weeks, depending on the backlog of work. The second hurdle was explaining Peter’s connection to the machine, how he accidently wiped himself out of their plane of reality (or created a third, Walter mumbles, eating the rim of a red vine). Of the two stories it’s the harder sell, and only resolves itself when Peter clambers up the staircase with a curse and lets the machine expand and retract as if titillated by his presence.

“Get back down here,” Olivia commands, with the same inflection of dread Lincoln was experiencing.

Peter trips down the staircase neatly, mouth tight. “It’s not my favourite place, either, but you needed someone who can operate the machine.” Olivia raises her chin, her eyes narrowed with the implication. Frank stands behind Olivia like a solid wall.

“So you’re a remnant,” Broyles says, sounding pained. “Where do you plan to live?” There’s no house, financial resources, personal belongings other than the clothes on his back; with Astrid in Washington, there’s only two places Broyles’ will place him.

Peter fidgets uncomfortably. “Can you put me up in a motel?”

Broyles draws himself up to full height, the expression on his face dark; there’s no doubt he believes the evidence before him, but trust is a thinly stretched commodity, fraying at the edges of opposing realities, he won’t allow Lee’s ‘weird contact’ to stay anywhere without tabs.

Peter starts to look increasingly strained as Olivia shifts position, preparing to make the offer. _Balderdash _, Lincoln thinks, and doesn’t know if it’s directed at Peter or himself.__

“He can stay with me,” he offers, and doesn’t miss the way the other man relaxes, the flare of gratitude in his eyes as he nods at Lincoln.

Peter drives him to his apartment in the early hours of pre-dawn. The streets are deserted, the air icy crisp. Lincoln stumbles through the front entry in a fog of exhaustion; he only owns a single set of sheets but he throws Peter a sleeping bag from his Boy Scout days and directs him to the couch. Lincoln falls onto the bed fully clothed, asleep before his head hits the pillow. He awakes the following morning buried under a the blankets, tie and jacket gone, the first few buttons loosened on his dress shirt, shoes stacked neatly beside the bed.

He sprawls in the line of sunshine bisecting the mattress; spine arched, blinking at the ceiling until his vision clears, until the scent of bacon and strong coffee has him crawling out of bed. Lincoln drops the wrinkled shirt and slacks on the ground, clothing he’s been dressed in longer than he cares to admit, and wanders out in boxers, bare-chested, his hair a mess. Peter falters as he pours the juice, a startled pause as his eyes perform a sweep from the tip of Lee’s head to his ass. Bemused, Lincoln wonders if he ought to pirouette.

He brushes past Peter in the small kitchen, one layer of clothing too many, static electricity a warm build-up between them. “Thanks,” Lincoln says, voice husky with sleep, and leans over Peter’s back to steal the bacon straight out of the pan.

_____________

 _How many loved your moments of glad grace?  
And loved your beauty with love false or true?  
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,  
And loved the sorrows of your changing face. _  
\- W.B Yeats.__

 

The lab in Harvard has a particular scent they can’t erase, ammonia and dry dust; Lincoln’s crawled through the air-ducts and checked every cupboard to no avail. The smell is a sharp tang poised on Lee’s throat, like a sneeze waiting to happen. The only place exempt is the back office.

Olivia looks up from a folder as he enters, a pen tucked neatly behind her ear. She launches into their current investigation with a nod of thankyou as Lincoln passes her a black with one sugar. “Astrid and I will be running some interviews with the dockworkers this morning. You should swing by the waterfront, see if Mr. Aryres shows up.” In a refreshing change, Christopher Aryres falls into the category of ‘freak of the week’, the type of criminal who zaps Lincoln with impunity or commandeers his body, as if Lee’s a flashy Lamborghini, to be raced across the countryside.

They suspect Aryres can control water; a series of drownings occurred on dry land, in places traditionally devoid of water - the bed of a Union Dock member in one scenario, whereas another victim was found inside a car parked at the local cinema. Lincoln nods, one ear attuned to Olivia while the other tracks the conversation taking place nearby.

“Were we close?” Walter asks curiously.

“Not for the first thirty years of my life.”

Walter reels as if physically struck, staggering away before Peter catches him by the hospital ID tag; his thumb traces fragile blue, following the vein to a cluster of needle marks. Peter’s difficult to read, his default setting borderline sarcastic. Lincoln’s seen him snide, rude, he lost a small fortune in poker when Bishop first taught him to gamble (except for the IKEA rug, which Peter refused to except as payment), but Lincoln’s never seen him soft, never heard his voice turn reflective, gentling his father with the touch of his hand.

“The last three years we were closer than I imagined. I’m sorry, Walter. I never intended this.”

Walter’s grip reaffirms, tightens vice-like around Peter’s forearm. “There’s a man in my ward, he sings Row, Row, Row Your Boat every night before I sleep. I’d like some pleasant dreams; now I’m nearing the end.” His hand, crevassed with age, shakes with minor tremors until Peter covers it with his own, voice low with promise.

“You have a long way yet, Walter.”

Lincoln turns away, awkward with the quiet intimacy, with the fortifications under construction. Olivia meets his eyes, having trailed off mid-sentence when she realised Lincoln wasn’t paying her any mind. “I don’t get it,” Lincoln admits, his smile lopsided.

“Go on.”

“Walter. Hair, fibre, bone and blood. There is nothing, absolutely _nothing _that connects them other than that.”__

“That’s not true for Peter.”

“It _is _true for Walter.”__

Olivia has a tone when she’s playing devil’s advocate, her mind engaged, bright-eyed with interest. “Well, he wants to leave St. Claire’s.”

Lincoln snorts, turning the coffee cup in his hand. “You know as well as I do that’s not it.” Walter’s calm in Peter’s presence, the fugue states and random violence diminishing with each passing day; it’s as if Walter has a space etched beside him, permanently moulded into the shape of his son. Lincoln shifts in his seat, a spark of resentment that drives him to fidget. “Walter’s…unconditional,” he observes, and swallows half the coffee, scolding hot, bitter on his tongue. “Are you happy?” He asks, apropos of nothing.

“Yes.” There’s confusion in Olivia’s eyes. “Very much so. Lincoln, you’re bouncing around like a tennis ball.”

“Dennis Crover was the cutest looking boy on the varsity baseball team. I brought him home to meet my parents when I was twenty-one.” Lincoln glances over, a quick evaluation to judge her reaction. “My father hasn’t spoken to me since.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?” Lee parodies. “Your eloquence is a balm.”

Olivia’s mouth curves, turning her head into her palm to hide the smile. “I’m not exactly sure what I’m supposed to say, Lincoln… You know what, no, I do know: unconditional love leads to inter-dimensional kidnappings and an over abundance of angst. You’re better off without out it.”

“Olivia Dunham: Hallmark moment.”

This time the smile is full-blown. Lee grins at her in return, turning his head to watch Walter as the scientist putters between two workstations. Olivia might not believe it, but he appreciates the attempt at levity. “I’ll take Peter with me on the dockyard sweep, he’s handy to have around.”

“Okay,” Olivia agrees, mouth still quirked upward. “Try to be back at Liberty Island by two, or call in if you can’t make it.”

The glasses slip down the bridge of his nose. “The fact you’re still dating the overgrown gym-rat proves how shallow you are.”

Olivia’s laugh curls around Lincoln’s toes, warm as music. She tilts forward and purrs, “ _Very _happy.”__

Unconditional. Lincoln thinks this is what acceptance means, to protect something good. He feels the tension ease out of his bones, the memory of his father’s dis-ownership evaporating like yesterday’s bad dream. “I swear, the longer the Bridge stays open the closer to AltLiv you become.”

“Quite the astute observation,” Walter concurs. He grabs a pencil from a nearby coffee cup with the broken handle, and walks back to his post. Olivia gapes at him. Lincoln wonders if he ought to pay attention to random statements from mad scientists.

“Walter?” Olivia calls, worryingly.

****

 

They arrive at the docks the following morning before dawn. The mist rolls out to sea as the sun struggles to emerge, the light fragile, a shell pink softened by silence. They pass the first few hours with idle conversation, with coffees that stack up on the dashboard in a neat row. Lincoln, never comfortable with the quiet, feels some things ought to be stated outright, before kidnappings occur, before people forget to anchor themselves while stitching through time, and before they jump between realities like a girl playing hopscotch.

“Olivia’s my partner, has been for two years, and she’s been through enough. Frank Stanton makes her happy. If you try to mess it up in the slightest I’ll let every law enforcement agency know Peter Caspian is a fake identity,” Lee says in a rush. Peter freezes with the binoculars halfway to his eyes. “I thought I should let you know,” Lincoln finishes awkwardly. He counts the sea-gulls wheeling in the sky as Peter asks without inflection:

“What about what I’ve been through?”

‘Casper’ spent his entire life uprooted, dropped on foreign soil, he’ll adapt, Lincoln decides, it’s what Peter does best.

“I’ll let you cry into your beer manfully,” Lincoln deadpans and blatantly ignores the look Peter throws him. “By the way, has Walter ever mentioned the term ‘inter-dimensional bleed-over’ to you?”

“Yeah.” Bishop braces his knee against the dashboard, wiggles backward in his seat until he’s comfortable. “The only thing William Bell feared was a stable doorway between alternate worlds.”

Lincoln feels his head begin to pound. “So…like a bridge?”

“Something like that.”

“ _You did what William Bell feared the most _?”__

“Bell said a war began because a child was stolen, take the child out of the equation and here we are, smack bang in the middle of a war. Cause and effect would suggest events began a little _earlier _than 1985, and that leaves you with your principal players, Bell, Walter, and Sharp.” Peter looks at him. “Walter’s memory has more holes than Swiss cheese. Bell’s unreliable, plus dead, and Nina Sharp has control of Massive Dynamic…that’s our suspect, by the way.”__

“What?” Lincoln says, and whips his head around, spotting Christopher Aryres as he strolls along the dock, hands shoved deep into his pockets. Peter steps out of the car, then leans in again, eyes blue as the ocean, summer wide.

“I wasn’t playing you, the night I arrived.”

The car door slams shut. Lee feels he’s in the hands of a master magician, distracted by a juggler, a beautiful woman, and the main act, uncertain where to focus his attention first; he feels he just missed something important. Unease gnaws at his gut.

He scrambles out of the car and follows Peter along the pier, one hand on his badge as he calls out stridently: “Mr. Aryres! FBI!”

Aryres freezes as the clouds roll in. The flush of light darkens with a spark of malevolence. The sky turns bruise-black. The ocean, mirror-quiet ten minutes ago, roils with whitecaps as something shifts, stirs below in the deep.

“I need a minute of your time, Mr. Aryres,” Lincoln continues, voice calm. The heavens lash out with the cold fist of hail, a thousand stinging tears. The other man sneers and backs up half a step. Peter breaks away, circling anti-clockwise to put space between all three of them as the wind begins to howl. “Mr Aryres!” Lincoln shouts, his voice lost. Christopher’s eyes roll in his head. His gaze turns opaque as a rotting corpse. One hand lifts like an approximation of a child’s gun, thumb and forefinger as trigger and barrel.

Lincoln pulls his weapon, feels his coat whip around his legs in a frenzy. Peter is further away. Bishop turns toward him and yells.

***

 

Lincoln’s certain no one tried to kill him in Hartford. He has it on good authority he never lost a single suit. They return to Lee’s apartment an hour later, drenched to the bone, with half the ocean emptied from Lincoln’s lungs. Peter’s fist remains knotted in his coat-collar and Aryres is dead, consigned to shipwrecks, drifting undertows, the siren-call of forgotten sailors. Lincoln sways on his feet, listening dazedly as Peter talks to Olivia on the phone.

He’s just shot a man, a second before he was swatted into the ocean, struck by a wave that hit with the roar of a thousand trains. He can’t seem to catch his breath, chest cavity aching with the memory of saltwater, with the bruises Peter left behind.

Lincoln shivers through a hot shower, through a change of clothes. He sucks down a beer Peter gives him and sits on the edge of the couch, staring at Dennis’ rug until the tension turns his muscles to stone. He doesn’t feel warmth until fingers find his chin; when Peter turns his head into a kiss that tastes of hops and barley, flavoured with heated desperation.

Peter isn’t gentle. He’s harsh, battering against Lincoln’s defences, demanding to be recognised, until Lee opens his mouth wide, fingers on the hinge of his jaw. “Don’t do that,” Peter says urgently, “please, Lincoln I’m tired of starting over.” His fingers leave patterns on Lincoln’s skin, equations of mass versus velocity minus loss, until Lee feels he’s drowning all over again, eyes wide open, breath measured to Peter’s kiss.

Lincoln goes from cold to hot like a fever.

He’s loved one boy in his life. After Dennis left there was no one, nothing but the cold satisfaction on his father’s face, the door to his family home forever closed. Touch-starved, he bites the joint of a collar bone, soothes the pale column of a neck, grinds relentless against muscle clad denim until Lincoln realises he’ll come, tactless as a teenager, undone by frottage.

“God you’re beautiful,” Peter whispers, “do you have any idea?”

It seems safe to let go, to let the wariness masquerading as politeness fall apart. Peter had him pegged from the moment they met. Lincoln shudders through the orgasm with his eyes half-lidded, body perfectly arched.

Peter bites, a sharp indentation of teeth, hands roaming over the flanks of his torso, he eases Lincoln through the aftershocks, movements ponderous slow, as if now Lincoln’s pliant he wants to take his time. Peter strips them both, fingers trailing through the mess of cooling spunk, thumb pressed against the v of muscle that trails as an arrowhead to the groin. He leads Lincoln to the bedroom, usurps his territory, finds the lube hidden in the drawer and presses it into Lincoln’s hands.

Refraction time won’t allow Lincoln to get it up, the insistence in Peter’s eyes is his only clue. There’s something vulnerable about opening himself, every act displayed to Peter’s scrutiny, his knees braced wide, fingers working from behind. It should be embarrassing, a little cold, instead there’s nothing but heat. Peter watches every flick of wrist, categorizes every micro-expression, until Lincoln loosens on his own fingers. He has the luxury to set the pace, not rush himself into injury, until the shift from awkward to wanton eclipses residual shyness.

When he’s ready, Lincoln pushes Peter flat on his back, one palm to his abdomen, the other tight around the base of Peter’s cock, and eases down, gravity working the hard-yards as fullness settles in. Lincoln sinks, flush with the other man’s hip, until Peter’s breathing hitches tellingly. Lincoln’s thighs gather beneath him, minutes ticking away quietly until he adjusts, his cock, half-hard, twitching traitorously. Peter rolls them both, drives into him, one hand working the shadows between Lincoln’s legs, breath hot against the side of his neck.

They wake up the next morning and do it all over again - in the shower – Lincoln’s fingers scrabbling against wet tiles as Peter fucks him, chin hooked over one shoulder. “You won’t travel through time for me, will you,” Lee demands.

Peter slows down, mouth beside his ear, tone and words at odds with one another. “Are you kidding? You won’t even share half the blankets with me, god no.” And speeds up again, every thrust the perfect angle, until Lincoln’s choking on steam, on laughter, the spikes of pleasure driving him to his tip-toes.

***

“You missed yesterday’s meeting,” Olivia remarks, passing him a coffee along with a pastry from Astrid’s personal stash. Ravenous, Lincoln falls on it, pulling the pastry apart in long strips, flakes marring the report he has half completed.

“Too busy swallowing the Atlantic.”

“I heard,” Olivia looks at him, the concern heavy as touch, her hand finds his across the table, a quick squeeze of her fingers before she withdraws. “Walter and his double made progress. They think they know how to stop the disintegration of the alternate world.”

Lincoln chokes, swallows a mouthful of pastry and begins to grin. “No more bridge? No more inter-dimensional bleed-over?”

Olivia smiles. “Walter said the bleed-over is minimal. The bridge isn’t open long enough to effect people on a grand scale. You’re not going to turn into your double.”

“I don’t know,” Lincoln says musingly. “I’ve gone through so many suits I’m considering investing in cargo-pants. It’s cheaper on my wallet.”

Olivia shakes her head and leans against the wall, hands in her pockets. “For someone who almost died yesterday, you seem in remarkably good spirits.”

“For someone who heard our troubles are almost solved, you’re not.” After two years working together, Lincoln’s familiar with the way Olivia builds to a topic. He chews on his pastry and winks conspiratorially, “This tap-dance is always so much fun.”

Olivia bites her cheek before she blurts out. “AltLiv is pregnant.”

Lincoln chokes on his pastry for the second time. “When did you become buddies with AltLiv?”

Olivia makes a face, one finger under his chin to snap his jaw close. “Unlike you, I’ve never avoided my double…we talk, on occasion.”

“And this talk launched a funk?” It’s not a funk, Lincoln realises. There’s something unsettled about her demeanour, about the tightness in Olivia’s shoulders.

“I want her to have a world where she can raise a child safely,” Olivia says waveringly. “I like the idea somewhere I have a son or a daughter…Frank and I talked, but I’ve always said only when this mess is cleaned up.” Olivia seems broken at the edges, her complexion eggshell white. She paces the room, her hands combative, sharp punctuations that underscore her words. “Until then, I was going to be the best Aunt in the world.”

 _You are _, Lincoln doesn’t say; whatever’s bothering Olivia, she’s still building to it.__

“How many cortexiphan subjects have we found? They’re all in their thirties by now, sometimes older, and _none _of them have children. What if there’s something wrong?” Olivia doesn’t drop her stare. For the first time in their partnership Lincoln wants her to, to give him a moment’s reprieve, to gather his thoughts. “What if the cortexiphan did more than give us ‘abilities’? What if it took some away?”__

“Have you spoken to Walter?” It’s not what Lincoln wants to say. The words seem bereft of comfort, he winces as her expression locks down, a window of opportunity slamming shut.

“I might kill him, if he gave the wrong answer.”

“Maybe the cortexiphan kids share the same fears you do, the same reservation? Maybe you got it wrong. But, Olivia, even if you can’t…Frank loves you, it shouldn’t matter if there’s a whole tribe of Stanton’s or if the two of you sail alone to the end. He fell in love with _you _. Regardless of your choice, he won’t leave, not if he’s given the option.” She’s listening, there’s a line of worry between Olivia’s eyebrows, her body is locked down with control, but she’s listening. He sets his pastry aside, no longer hungry, and says with conviction. “You should speak with Walter, chances are it’s nothing but coincidence.”__

She turns away, suddenly uncomfortable, both hands running over her head, smoothing her hair into its customary ponytail, tight against her skull.

Peter approaches cautiously, eyes flicking to Lincoln. He looks pained, not privy to Olivia’s trust but still capable of reading the distress on her face. Lee watches; muscles coiled tight in his stomach, until Peter drops into the seat beside him, so close their shoulders brush.

“Walter said he might have a solution?” Peter asks. His voice sounds perfectly normal, his thigh presses hard against Lincoln’s beneath the table.

Olivia refocuses, the sudden dilation of her eyes the only indication she’s put two and two together: Lincoln’s untold ability to relax after near-death combined with the complete lack of space between them. “We need you to separate the worlds again,” Olivia says apologetically, her eyes wavering to Lincoln. “Walter needs you back in the machine.”

 _Fuck _, Lincoln thinks.__

****

Lincoln doesn’t give a damn about the final solution; it’s scientific, over his pay-grade. They have one week for final preparations and the only thing he knows for certain is Peter’s scared.

He never says as much, but the sex between them becomes increasingly rough, uncensored. They’re nearly arrested on the third day when a police officer stumbles across them in a secluded park. Lincoln feels like a walking advertisement for ‘deviates are us’, his lips cock-swollen and red. He’s loose, slippery in his own skin. Peter maps every erogenous zone Lincoln has – introduces him to two or three he never knew – he burns an impression, leaves his initials emblazoned on Lincoln’s skin. On other days, Peter’s quiet, tongue in Lincoln’s mouth, sprawled across the bed, actions slow as syrup. “Love you,” he whispers quietly, when he thinks Lincoln’s asleep.

The words pass through him like electricity, heartbeat erratic as Lincoln keeps his eyes closed.

They drive to New York in silence; catch the ferry across choppy waters, the desolate cry of sea-gulls a harsh accompaniment as they lean over the railing, their cheeks stained red with the cold.

“I have a list,” Lincoln says, half an hour before Peter steps into the machine. He’s pale, Lincoln notes, but Peter quirks an eyebrow, bare toes curling against the concrete as he motions Lincoln to continue. “One: Walter. Bero Genetics passed the DNA results to the federal courts for their perusal, and if you up and vanish now, after all our lying to the proper authorities, Walter won’t be the only one pissed off. Two: indirectly, you thought you were the starting point of a war between realities - billions of lives in the balance - so you took yourself out of the equation, and guess what, it didn’t change a damn thing. Great job! Well done! You ought to learn from the experience. And three: I don’t want you to start over again,” Lincoln blinks, swallows hard, the admission barely audible. “We shouldn’t have to start over.”

“It’s a good list,” Peter says, unsteadily.

Lincoln curls a hand around his nape and tugs him forward roughly. “Just separate the worlds, okay? Don’t think about anything else.”

There’s a huff of laughter, Peter’s fists curl inward, his forehead resting against Lee’s. “It’s the elephant in the room. My father always said I think too much…he had to shock me into silence.” The words speak of a memory Lincoln doesn’t share, some previous case-file in a reality already written over.

“Peter,” Olivia says, austere in her pea coat. “Do you mind if I follow you up the stairs?”

He looks startled, her overture taking him by surprise; Peter’s kept his distance in this new world, unwilling to jeopardize Olivia’s happiness, a better man perhaps than Lincoln gave him credit for. “I think it would be a comfort,” he admits, softly.

Lincoln grabs her by the wrist, arresting her progress before she can follow him. Olivia’s smile turns Mona Lisa sad. “Walter theorizes the machine protects Peter - it’s why he’s here - when all of our interactions were wiped clean.”

“That’s not it,” Lincoln shakes his head. “Olivia, don’t let him lose himself.” She doesn’t try to pull free, doesn’t dismiss the fear sparking like a livewire inside of him.

“You have my word.”

Lincoln has belief in those four words, uttered by this one woman: he lets her go.

At fifteen hundred hours, Peter steps into the machine. Olivia stands halfway up the staircase, balanced on the rickety scaffolding. For a world-changing event, the machine’s anti-climatic; there’s no light show, no flashes of lightning. The machine retracts, stretching Peter’s limbs as if threatening to tear him apart. His body arches, concave with strain.

Downstairs, the computers on one side of the room flicker out of existence. Walternate, AltLiv, Lincoln’s infernal double, and Brandon all vanish between one breath and another, the Bridge sealing shut. The room shrinks, losing width, folding inward like the petals of a dying flower. Inside the machine, Peter fades - no longer corporeal. The wall behind him turns visible. A patchwork of mortar and brick.

Lincoln takes a step forward.

Olivia straightens, her gait measured as she walks up the remaining stairs. There’s a shimmer as the force field flares to life, sensing foreign intrusion -trying to protect the core of the machinery. Olivia waves it out of existence with her eyes closed. She makes it to the landing without incident. “Here,” she says, without moving her mouth. Her voice echoes in the caverns, the empty spaces of the hangar-bay. It passes through the room like the clap of thunder; the threat of lightning. “Peter, _here _.”__

He shimmers, energy signatures from multiple realities a halo of molten light.

Olivia frowns, swings around until she’s in front, holding onto the structural arms of the machine for support. “Peter,” she says intimate as a lover, standing unafraid. The machine expands, compromising her grip before she steadies herself. “Peter you belong with us.” He reels, eyes snapping open as his body solidifies. Olivia catches him by the shoulders, manoeuvres them both onto the platform, cat-sure against his disorientation, her mouth a benediction on his forehead. “I’ve got you.”

They spend the next forty-eight hours glued to the monitors, watching soft spots as they evaporate one by one, until Lincoln kisses Olivia goodnight, mouth lingering on the side of her cheek. He feels the curve of her smile against his lips, until she swats him, good-naturedly, her head turning to track Peter thoughtfully. Lincoln drives them home against the morning rush hour, the radio muted, one ear attuned for reports out of the ordinary. They stumble through the front-entry and fall into bed; sleep with their legs entangled, arms entwined, so close a coin couldn’t slot between them. Lincoln wakes up with the memory of three weeks of uninhibited sex driving his libido, with Peter boneless, curled close beside him.

He uses his shoulders to nudge Peter’s legs apart. Uses oil, fingers, and tongue until Peter’s twisting the bed-sheets in his hands, sleep addled and not really with it. His mouth is tight on his cock, and he’s three fingers deep. Peter groans, low in his throat as Lincoln swallows, deep throating like a porn star. He pulls off with his lips sealed tight, dragging against skin, and pushes a fourth finger in while Peter’s distracted, thumb running over the perineum, over tautly stretched skin.

When he looks up, Peter’s eyes are shocky, the rise and fall of his chest elevated, cock softening with the intrusion.

Lincoln slows it down, takes it back to the baby steps of kissing, the sly flicks of his tongue. He uses more oil, fingers cramping until Peter finally relaxes. Lincoln tucks his thumb in close and pushes, feels the body yield slowly against inexorable pressure, Peter makes a broken–off sound, as if the vibration of noise, the ripple of movement, has become too much too soon. Lincoln places one hand on top of his belly, a layered position to where his other hand resides, and sucks the tip of Peter's cock until he brings him to full erection. Patient, never jolting his wrist, Lincoln whispers, “I won’t let you go,” and lets the words become immutable, buried deep. He closes his fist with promise and feels Peter shatter, wetness splashing his abdomen, his chest, body clenched. Lincoln stays until the endorphins kick in, until he’s spent, body slack, wide open. Lincoln withdraws, replaces his fingers with his cock, and thrusts, watchful, greedy with need.

 

EPILOGUE:  
2013:

 

Marie Harver’s an old cortexiphan subject with a penchant for fireballs. She catches Peter and Lincoln in an alleyway on 45th Street and scorches the earth to either side of them.

Lincoln, who has no intention of becoming a human torch, hunkers on one side of a burnt out SUV which blocks their escape route; the metal molten hot, glowing bright as lava. “Liv, love?” he says into the radio, “this is ruining my fair complexion.”

Olivia’s voice sounds in his ear. “When did you become so high maintenance?”

“It’s not my fault! These type of people have a thing for me! I’m a good looking guy, they sense that!”

He can hear the smile in her voice. “And routinely try to kill you for it.”

“Except you, because unlike them you’re not immune to my charms, you’re just playing hard to get,” Lincoln retorts, then kisses dirt when Peter knocks him flat, a fireball whizzing over-head. “ _Jesusfuckingchrist _.”__

The SUV rises, suspended, a screech of metal and burning tires held aloft mid-air.

Peter grabs him by the collar and bolts; they skid under its mass like star players for the Red Sox and slide straight into Olivia. She lets the SUV drop with a crash when they knock her feet out from underneath her. The SUV hits the earth with a bone-jarring rattle. They roll apart without dignity, scrambling to find shelter behind the nearest cornerstone. “That’s never going to stop being hot,” Lincoln declares, staring at Olivia rather than the vehicle.

“I think I preferred it when you were uncomfortable and mousy,” Olivia mutters, ducking her head around the corner to search for Marie’s position.

“I was _never _mousy.”__

Olivia meets Peter’s eyes, her mouth twitching helplessly. “I blame you,” she says, mock-accusingly. Lincoln checks the clip in his automatic then pats Peter down quickly, searching for burns. “Did you get an eye-ball in the alleyway?” she asks.

“Third floor, Marie’s holed up in the fourth apartment to the left,” Peter confirms. He accepts one of the weapons Lincoln passes over and pulls the other man close by his tactical-vest. The kiss is quick, a rasp of stubble and teeth, one hand fisted in Lincoln’s hair until they break apart.

“Thank you,” Lincoln says, because he’s a polite boy raised from a polite family, and positive behaviour ought to be reinforced. And then – because Lincoln doesn’t miss the way Olivia stares at them – because Peter has the morals of an alley cat, and neither one of them has heard the name Frank Stanton in over a year, he says. “Liv, seriously, if you ever want to join us…?”


End file.
